Recently, I enjoyed working on one of the largest paintings I’ve ever attempted, and it’s an abstract, nonetheless. As much as I like working more abstractly, it exercises a different set of muscles that I have yet to really develop. The process still feels a little foreign and uncertain to me, but maybe that’s what also makes it exciting.

When I started work on this piece, I had a very vague idea of what direction this would take. It began one way, then took various twists and turns along the journey of process. Here’s what things looked like towards the beginning (my little helper, as pictured, is fascinated by brushes!):

My son, Asa, was having some fun in the studio.

Whipped yogurt is one of my favorite snacks. Don’t forget the baby monitor.

There were several features I began with that ultimately were edited out, including the long stream of dark paint drips on the right (see first post image). I just kept building upon the texture and continued to add subtle color variations into the background. Metal stencils, honeycomb pattern, gold leafing…it all kind of converged for the final effects:

Applying gold leafing to a few honeycombs.

I couldn’t really capture a good photo of the whole painting that did it justice. But if you’re local to San Luis Obispo, you should come see it on display for Open Studios Art Tour, 2016. The tour is two weekends in October, 8-9 and 15-16 from 10am to 5pm. Come by studios #73 and #85. Joining me at my home studio will be the incredibly talented encaustic artist, Maura Fox. We hope to see you there!

Hello blog world, art world and any other world that coincides in some way! It’s been a while since the last post. To be honest, I was feeling a bit stuck. Writer’s block, painter’s block, creativity block…whatever you call it, I had it. For a couple of weeks. It’s hard. And I’m trying to figure out how to better navigate those times of “uninspiredness”. I know, it’s not a word, but hopefully you get the idea.

Two words have emerged as themes for me lately, POWER and SIMPLICITY. Power, because I want the work that I do, however much or little to be work that grabs the viewer. To make an impact with it. Like BAM, hit you over the head, but in a really great and refreshing way. The second word is simplicity. Sometimes I try to overdo my work. I put way too much thought into it. Often less is more and I think it’s time to work on simplifying my style a little bit.

Anyhow, while emerging out of my general state of being creatively stuck, here are a few things I’ve been working on…

These little plants (aren’t they cute?) inspired a recent painting

And here’s the painting, done on wood panel. It’s 12″ x 16″ inches

The approach for this one, which is quite a bit different from anything I’ve done before, is built up color and texture first (the colors you see in the pots and leaves) and then I painted in the negative space between the objects using white. It was challenging, but a lot of fun.

I used some fun, textured papers in the background

Another new technique I tried is the direct photo transfer method. If you follow the link, you’ll find a helpful video I used to learn how to transfer a black and white image (in this case it was a printout of some journaling I did) to the surface of my painting.

I used the direct photo transfer method for the words you see in the background using gel gloss medium

Another project I’m working on right now is a package redesign for a surf company. More on that at a later time. But as I experimented and brainstormed some concepts for the package designs, these are some of the pieces I worked on…

I experimented with some more mixed-media, as well as water colors on canvas

I had fun with the colors in that wave on the left 🙂

Two more things I’m working on right now are:

A painting for Powerful Women, a show curated by Lena Rushing, which will be on display at Linnaea’s in May.

Some design work for Little Acorns by Ro, my sweet cousin’s fabulous shop. You should check it out, she creates some really lovely family-oriented goodies.

Well, that about sums up what’s going on around here. I’m enjoying a new stage of experimentation and trying not to put so much pressure on producing…just EXPLORING 🙂